No One Has Seen the Father Except Jesus

I was listening through a sermon today from one of my favorite churches. In it, the pastor developed a useful objection that trinitarians bring against many non-trinitarian cults, grounded in Jesus’ claim that no one has seen the Father. Because this objection also threatens a patternist view, I thought that I would draft up my thoughts on how best to respond to it.

In particular, the pastor attacked the Jehovah’s Witness idea that “Jehovah” and “Father” are synonymous terms that can be used interchangeably in scripture. I made a general case for the same idea in my article, Are the terms “God” and “Father” interchangeable in scripture? Here we’ll look at the two passages this pastor used to give a negative case on the subject, John 6:46 and Genesis 18:1. In the first, Jesus claimed that no one had ever seen the Father except himself. In the second, we see God (Yahweh/Jehovah) appearing to Abraham and eating with him.

In bringing these two scriptures together, the pastor claimed that “Jehovah” and “Father” have to be distinguishable in some sense, since Abraham saw Jehovah, and according to Jesus, the Father cannot be seen. Trinitarians believe that there is one God (Jehovah), but three persons in the godhead — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So the appearance of Jehovah to Abraham is best viewed as God the Son (Jesus) appearing to him, with God the Father remaining obscured. Therefore Jesus can say that only he has seen the Father.

Is trinitarian theology the only way to reconcile these two passages? I would argue that no, pattern theology handles this same dilemma without any difficulty. Furthermore, the trinitarian use of John 6 in this way ignores the immediate and broader context of the passage, adding meaning to Jesus’ words that he didn’t intend. Jesus is not saying that he alone in all of time and history is the only person to see the Father. Rather, he is commenting on the general, normal way that humans learn from God, receiving his word through a mediator (Jesus), and receiving the direct divine aid of the Holy Spirit in understanding and applying it.

To start, trinitarians should be able to concede that on further examination of the scriptures, at least one person other than Jesus has seen the Father, namely the prophet Daniel. If this isn’t conceded, then it’s difficult to understand how a trinitarian could reconcile Daniel’s vision of God (the Ancient of Days) engaging with Jesus (the son of man) in Daniel 7. It reads,

As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened…

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Dan 7:9-10, 13-14)

Everyone in this discussion should be able to set aside metaphysical questions of the Ancient of Days having hands and hair. Both trinitarians and patternists believe in an immaterial transcendent God who engages with creation through anthropomorphic language and physical manifestations (such as the incarnate Jesus, and the preincarnate angel of the Lord). But God in his true form transcends these material constructs.

The question at hand is the identity of the Ancient of Days. He is clearly a person who is different from the son of man, and we know that Jesus identified himself as the latter. From a trinitarian standpoint, that leaves the Father and the Holy Spirit. I doubt there will be much argument on this point, so I won’t waste space laboriously defending it. But we know that Jesus is described in many places as descending from the Father and returning to Him, and receiving his heavenly kingdom from Him (e.g. Heb 1-2). So it seems clear that the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7 is best identified as the Father described elsewhere, and that we are viewing a prophetic record of what happened (or would happen) in Heaven after Jesus ascended.

Because Daniel uses visual language in his description of the event — “As I looked,” and “I saw in the night visions” — We know that these are things that Daniel saw. Whether that sight was “in the body or out of the body, I do not know” (2Co 12:2-3), so one might quibble that Daniel didn’t “see” the Father with his physical eyes. But such a point only raises the more relevant question of what Jesus actually meant when he said that no one has seen the Father. He clearly didn’t mean that no one sees him in any sense at all. Rather, his words are in a specific context, being limited by the issue he was dealing with at the time.

Let’s look at the context of Jesus’ words. Beyond what I’ll cite here, the broader context is the Bread of Life Discourse, where people were responding in excitement to his recent miracle of creating and distributing masses of food. Instead of feeding them a second time, Jesus used their request for more food to point them to their deeper need for spiritual food from God. This didn’t give them what they wanted, so they grumbled against him, and he took a moment to use their discontent as an example of their lack of spiritual nourishment. It’s in that context that he says the following:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. (Jhn 6:44-46)

Importantly, Jesus’ statement that no one has seen the Father is a side point that qualifies his statement about God’s intention to teach (i.e. spiritually feed) everyone who belongs to him. To establish this intention, he quotes the prophet Isaiah’s description of the final state of Israel and the world, when “all your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children” (Isa 54:13). We know from other scriptures and biblical themes (e.g. Rev 22:1-5) that the final state will restore us to a relationship with God of intimate, face-to-face fellowship. That fellowship has been hindered by sin, so that God can only dwell with his people through a temple veil. But ultimately God’s intention is to dwell with and within each person, instructing us directly. As the prophet Jeremiah said of Jesus’ work in this regard,

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer 31:33-34)

This parallels Isaiah’s prophecy, and elaborates on what the personal instruction of God looks like that we will receive in the end. Despite their being primarily about a future, eschatological event, Jesus uses prophecies like these in his teachings about the nature of his present-day work. But he has to deal with the distinction that prophecy sometimes fails to make between his first and second comings. Theologians refer to this tension as the “already-not-yet” fulfillment of prophecy. In this case, Jesus’ first advent to earth brought with it a renewal of our relationship with God, such that we receive instruction of the Holy Spirit poured out upon us at Pentecost. But we don’t yet have that face-to-face relationship with the Ancient of Days that God ultimately intends.

So in stating that “no one has seen the Father except he who is from God,” Jesus isn’t describing a metaphysical or strict rule of reality that God the Father is intrinsically hidden from all people in all time and history. He’s describing the normal, isolated condition of mankind that came from our rebellion against God, and that continues even after Jesus’ first advent and our reunion with God through the Holy Spirit. We still cannot see God and live; our only way to approach him is through the death of another. In days past this was done through animal sacrifice, such as when Abel approached God at Eden. But always this is ultimately through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the centerpiece of his first coming.

So in the present age, we are in a situation where we are born, live, and die on earth, while the Father (God, the Ancient of Days) is on his throne in Heaven. We have access to God’s Spirit through the work of Jesus, and when we die we behold the face of God in open, heavenly fellowship. But those who are still on earth prior to his second coming rely on the mediation of Jesus, the man who came down to us from Heaven, to receive God’s instruction.

So in this passage, Jesus presents himself as the bread of life / divine instruction that we need. In his pursuit of precision, Jesus grants that we now receive instruction directly from God, through the Holy Spirit. But that work of the Spirit is evidenced by our coming to Jesus. This is why he says, “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.”

To summarize then, Jesus is the bread of life and the incarnate instruction/word of God that we need. God also instructs us independent of the recorded words of Jesus, through His Holy Spirit. But this instruction by its very nature will draw us to Christ. Therefore anyone who is truly instructed by God will accept the words of the man he sent from Heaven.

As we’ve seen, Jesus’ words in John 6 have no real relevance the question of the Father’s ability to appear to people. He generally chooses not to appear to people, because of the impact of sin on his relationship with man. But there is nothing in God’s nature or Jesus’ description of the situation in John 6 that requires every appearance of God to be done through the trinity’s “Son” personage. To the contrary, we’ve seen that at least one such appearance (in Daniel 7) must be done by some divine person other than the Son, unless trinitarians want to have the son of man and God the Son interacting with each-other as different people. All in all, pairing Jesus’ bread of life discourse with Old Testamant appearances of God has no relevance to discussions on the nature of God. As often happens in trinitarian rhetoric, the passage is taken out of its intended context, and applied to a question that it was never meant to address.

Even with that said, however, as a patternist I actually agree with trinitarians that God’s appearance to Abraham was probably done through the preincarnate Christ, the Angel of the Lord. In many places in the Old Testamant, God manifested himself through this angel who was both God and distinct from God. But as I argue in my article on Jesus’ relationship with the Father, the trinity is a poor explanation for this phenomenon. Not only are the Lord and the angel of the Lord described as distinct from each-other, but they are also described as one and the same person. The trinity allows for a plurality of persons that share one divine (and impersonal) essence, but it doesn’t allow for composite personhood, where two or more persons behave as one. For this you need a view like pattern christology.

The trinitarian use of John 6 therefore fails on three counts.

1. Jesus’ claim that no one has seen the Father says little about the nature of God’s old testament appearances. Taken in context, the Father is not actually being portrayed as ontologically inaccessible.
2. Trinitarians fail to establish that their view alone can explain such old testament appearances.
3. The trinitarian explanation of old testament appearances does not sufficiently account for the overlap we see between the person of the Lord (the Father) and the person of his angel (the Son). Sometimes these persons are distinguished from each-other. Sometimes they speak and act as if they were the same person.

If the Church had a proper understanding of what the trinity is — a fallible, human attempt to reconcile the many scripture passages that speak about God’s nature (a theological system) — then these failures would simply reflect failures of human intellect. Minor failures like this could be seen as areas of improvement for the trinitarian system that can be tolerated with grace and humility by other genuine Christians who disagree with it. But because the trinity is held to be a central pillar of the Christian faith, a doctrine that determines one’s status as a true or false Christian (as this pastor claims, along with many others), failures like this need to be emphasized and highlighted until trinitarians recognize the shortcomings of their system, and allow for alternative attempts to explain the various scriptures that we see discussing the nature of God and Christ.